Magic Cabin Review and Giveaway

The innocence of a child is a beautiful thing. I love to watch my youngest daughter play. She loves to pretend. I would love to protect and preserve that innocence as long as possible. I think children these days are growing up too quickly. Their are too many toys and games out their that simply take away from good-old-fashioned make believe. I love Waldorf and Montessori approach to teaching and learning because it helps the child learn the world as they should learn it. I have always loved simple, natural things.

Magic Cabin started in 1989 as a small business by stay-at-home mom, Sara McDonald, selling beautiful handcrafted natural-fiber Waldorf-style dolls and kits to make the dolls yourself. Inspired by the enchanting cabin she lived in she named her new company Magic Cabin Dolls. Now Magic Cabin carries a number of different treasures for children. You can also still buy the Magic Cabin Dolls or the kits to make one yourself. I love their selection of toys because it instills open-ended, creative, imaginative play in children. Magic Cabin toys are kid powered and don't require batteries or electricity. In my opinion these are the best kind of toys. Magic Cabin is helping to preserve a child's innocence from becoming extinct. They have a number of products that they have selected from manufacturers that have the same standards and they also have some exclusive items to their shop. Their selections are both beautiful and enchanting, sturdy and safe, and best of all, FUN!

I received the Apple House Play Set and the Melissa & Doug Wooden Food Groups for free from Magic Cabin to test and review. I picked these items out from their online store. The Apple House Play Set a.k.a the Tree House Playset is just darling and my kids needed new set of play food because their cheap plastic set was suffering. I wanted some wooden play food and when I saw this set I thought it would be a great starter set.

The Apple House Play Set is a zip-up fabric apple tree house with fabric forest critters living inside. There are 6 total forest critters: a bunny, hedgehog, fox, moose, raccoon, and red squirrel. The tree house is two stories with a hole inside in which the animals can pop up and down through. It also has a little Velcro door in the bottom and two windows in the top on either side that opens and shuts for the woodland creatures to frolic in and out without unzipping the top. When unzipped the front top of the tree unfolds into a playmat that is whimsically embroidered with a outdoor woody scene. The smaller tree in the scene also has a pocket to put small treasures in if desired. The entire playset can be carried with the padded handle. I am in love with zip-up fabric houses and books like this one that can travel well because then the fun can be taken on long car/plane rides easily and the child will be entertained the whole way to the destination. Teela spent hours playing with this and is learning the names of the animals.

The Melissa & Doug Wooden Food Groups set has play food from all 4 food groups. I really like the set because there isn't any junk food in it and they are durable. As with all Melissa & Doug toys, I have confidence that they are safe and are quality made. This set of wooden play food is great for pretend play and comes with twenty wooden fruits, veggies, dairy, grains and meat. It also has four crates for sorting, stacking and storage. Teela was enjoying playing with them in her Playskool Fold 'n Roll Kitchen that we got second hand off Craigslist and I was trying to teach her which food goes into what food group. I love wooden toys! This wooden food set is great for having a well-balanced meal for your child's play kitchen. My only wish is that it had a green veggie and an apple in the set as well.

Magic Cabin has a Gift Certificate Sweepstakes where every month they give away a $100 gift certificate to their store. ENTER HERE. They also have a clearance sale where you can save up to 50% on select items HERE!

WIN SOMETHING HERE:
Lynn from Magic Cabin has generously offered a Apple House Play Set ($40 value) to give away to one of my readers!

Mandatory:
1. Go to the Magic Cabin website and tell me what other product not listed here you are interested in and why.

Additional entries:
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Make sure you leave me your email in all posts so that I can contact you. If you subscribed by email, blogged about this, listed it, commented on another post, or faved me on Momfaves leave 2 entries saying you did. This contest ends on Friday February 26, 2010 at midnight (GMT-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada). This Giveaway is open to U.S. Only!!

DISCLAIMER: I received products from Magic Cabin free of charge. All information about the products I received from testing the products and information from the Magic Cabin website. My thoughts are mine and my family's own opinion and have not been altered by anyone else. I did not receive any other compensation for doing this review.